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THE DRAPER COLLECTION 
OF MANUSCRIPTS 



BY 



JOSEPH SCHAFER 




The State Historical Society of \Vi>(.-uu«ui 

Separate No. 221 

From the Proceedings of the Society for 1922 



3CT2 1923 



U ME NTS or. 




LYMAN COPELAND DRAPER, LL. D, 

First secretary of the Society, 18o4-lS86 



13-tllV 



THE DRAPER COLLECTION OF MANUSCRIPTS 

Joseph Schafer 

One year ago, in connection with the annual meeting of the 
Society, Dr. Louise Phelps Kellogg of our staff delivered an 
address on "The Services and Collections of Lyman Copeland 
Draper." The address, a thoroughly informing production, 
was published in the March, 1922, number of the Wisconsin 
Magazine of History, and as was hoped, it doubtless has 
served to acquaint the younger members of the Society with 
the career of our distinguished first secretary, whose unique 
personality time has already rendered indistinct. It has 
served also once more to remind all members that, in the col- 
lections assembled by Draper and at his death bequeathed 
to this Society, the institution holds the trusteeship of one of 
the most valuable bodies of manuscript source material re- 
lating to American history, and doubtless the most valuable 
one illustrating the history of the region from the Blue Ridge 
to the Mississippi. The states which occupy the area of great- 
est interest to Draper are western New York and Pennsyl- 
vania, Ohio, Virginia, West Virginia, Piedmont North and 
South Carolina and Georgia, Kentucky, and Tennessee. Of 
that region, especially its more heroic pioneering aspects and 
its outstanding pioneer leaders, Draper aspired to be the his- 
torian. For, as he wrote in 1842, he was '■'■very passionately 
devoted to the pioneer history of the romantic West." 

MEMOIRS 

In pursuance of that ambition he sought out, first of all, 
the survivors — then usually very aged men — of the pioneer 
era. It seems to have been Draper's original purpose to ac- 
cumulate a great body of memoirs while as yet witnesses to 
early events and to the characters and deeds of pioneer heroes 

[ I ] 



WISCONSIN HISTORICAL SOCIETY 

were to be fQund. His object at lirst being to write a book 
which he called Sketches of the Pioneers, the plan of assem- 
bling memoirs must be looked upon as highly appropriate. 
To that end he traversed the region in question, visiting 
aged men and women whom he interviewed with the skill 
of the trained lawyer or reporter. He always knew enough 
about his subject in advance to enable him to keep his witness 
to the desired line. If the information was given orally, 
Draper made notes of it and these notes he carefully pre- 
served. In many other cases persons appealed to wrote out 
at his request, or dictated, statements covering their recollec- 
tions. Some of his correspondents, like the venerable William 
Martin and Dr. Felix Robertson of Tennessee, stimulated by 
means of successive questionnaires, wrote for Draper a series 
of memoirs aggregating many pages. 

DRAPER'S NOTES 

Draper's notes, however, do not by any means all have the 
character of memoirs. He was a genuine historian, and there- 
fore appreciated the difference in evidential value between 
recollections and contemporary records. It was his settled 
practice to examine all available records bearing upon his 
numerous special inquiries either before soliciting memoirs, 
in order to establish a foundation for his interviews, or after 
Buch interviews, by way of checking and supplementing the 
information they supplied. Thus Draper's notes, which fill 
a long series of volumes, are in large part transcripts, sum- 
maries, or extracts from contemporaneous documents ex- 
amined by him, such as printed accounts of important western 
men or historical episodes, letters, diaries, account books, 
eketch maps, reports — in a word, the types of material every 
true investigator accumulates when he designs to treat an im- 
portant historical theme. 

ORIGINAL DOCUMENTS 

Draper also (as is inevitable when the subject of investiga- 
tion is the recent history of a comparatively undeveloped com- 
munity) encountered in his inquiries many sons of the pio- 

[2] 



THE DRAPER COLLECTION 

neers who were still in possession of original papers illumi- 
nating, with the white light of contemporaneity, the theme of 
his researches. Such papers supplemented the resources of 
that description which had been previously known to histori- 
ans, and their discovery and preservation in some cases would 
certainly not have been effected but for his efforts. Some- 
times he examined such papers on the spot and made notes 
from them, as he did from similar papers collected in libraries ; 
again, he borrowed them to copy or summarize at his leisure, 
or he received them as gifts from those who were proud to 
assist in advancing his work. A considerable number of such 
original papers containing records contemporaneous with the 
subjects he was investigating repose in the Draper Collection. 
It is a popular misconception that the collection consists 
wholly or mainly of such original documents, given or lent 
to Draper by their custodians and ultimately bequeathed by 
him to the State Historical Society of Wisconsin. As a mat- 
ter of fact, the collection comprises mainly material of the 
other two descriptions — namely, memoirs and notes. In the 
assembling of these. Draper actually brought into existence 
new historical data most of which without his stimulation 
would certainly never have been written down. In some cases, 
even the original documents transcribed by him were after- 
wards lost, so that Draper's notes are now their sole repre- 
sentation; and some of the men who wrote most in the way 
of memoirs, under his guidance and inspiration, died soon 
after completing their manuscripts, which obviously would 
never have seen the light or been preserved save for Draper's 
agency. 

Too much cannot be said in praise either of Draper's ear- 
nestness in the pursuit of exact information or of the generous 
manner in which his efforts were seconded by western men 
and women to whom he appealed for aid. One cannot read 
the correspondence which passed between Draper and these 
good people without reaching the conviction that the little 
historian evoked unmeasured confidence in the hearts of the 
big men who, with their immediate forebears, had made the 

[3] 



WISCONSIN HISTORICAL SOCIETY 

history of the New West. They were not merely willing but 
eager to help; and while composition to some of the feeblest 
and most aged was a labor attended with much discomfort, 
they nevertheless wielded the pen with patient heroism and 
gave him the results. 

PUBLISHING PLANS 

As already stated, Draper began gathering these materials 
with the object of writing a '* little book" which he spoke of 
as Sketches of the Pioneers. Later, finding that his resources 
mounted ever higher and that his information was broadening 
and deepening, like Gibbon and almost every other genuine 
scholar he expanded the original idea. The biographical as- 
pect of it now took the form of a series of separate volumes, 
and he also planned a history of the King's Mountain cam- 
paign, the Mecklenburg Declaration of Independence, and per- 
haps other works. However, Draper was less ready in com- 
position than expert in accumulating notes, documents, and 
memoirs. He disliked intensely to go to press while harbor- 
ing any lingering doubts about the completeness of his inves- 
tigations. Therefore, he published reluctantly, tardily, and 
on the whole far less voluminously than he had once hoped 
to do. Nevertheless, he did bring out one monumental work, 
the history of King's Mountain, and he also published in 
Appleton's CyclopcBdia a series of biographies amply suffi- 
cient to redeem his early promise to write Sketches of the 
Pioneers. 

The correspondence with pioneer families reveals that their 
enthusiastic support of Draper's plans was in part due to the 
expectation of seeing his proposed books in print, especially 
such of them as should treat of the histories of their ancestors. 
Filial piety with most of his collaborators was a motive quite 
as strong as historical interest. It was doubtless the chief 
motive prompting them to place in Draper's hands such an- 
cestral records as had survived the usual vicissitudes of fire, 
mold, and other agents of destruction. But, so far as our 
examination of the correspondence has gone, it does not dis- 

[4] 



THE DRAPER COLLECTION 

close that any reservation was made in regard to returning 
such manuscripts to the donors, either on the completion of 
his books or in the event of his failure to complete them. Such 
a reservation would have been peculiarly out of place as re- 
gards memoirs given him by word of mouth or written down 
for his information. The written memoirs were in character 
simply expanded letters; and letters, unless specifically di- 
rected to be returned, are the property of the recipient. Be- 
sides, in the keenly interrogatory and historically informing 
letters they received from Draper, his correspondents prob- 
ably felt amply repaid for the labor bestowed upon their own 
communications to him. However, in fairness it must be said 
that Draper later gathered in, from his correspondents, many 
of his own historically important letters and, had he been re- 
quested to do so, there is no doubt he would have returned 
theirs — taking pains to retain copies if he deemed them of 
sufficient importance. 

Every collector of family manuscripts realizes how delicate 
are the relations between collector and donor, and especially 
how the sentiments of affection and veneration cause shifting 
and uncertainty in the attitude of such a donor. He person- 
ally may be willing to give the papers outright, but feels in 
duty bound to withhold title pending consultation with rela- 
tives, which process may then be long delayed or wholly neg- 
lected; he may deposit them in the expectation that he will 
never wish to recall them, yet retaining the right to do so in 
certain contingencies; he may give them outright without 
reservations; or he may lend them outright with a definite 
understanding that they shall be returned; and there are 
many cases between those described. Sometimes owners give, 
and later change the terms to a loan. Accordingly, no libra- 
rian can say with certainty at a given moment what is the ex- 
act status of specified manuscript collections in his library 
without consulting the records relating to their deposit, and 
sometimes those records leave the matter undecided. Where 
there is a multiplicity of collections, such as Draper accu- 



[51 



WISCONSIN HISTORICAL SOCIETY 

Ululated, it becomes impossible to keep in mind the circum- 
stances relating to the acquisition of all of them. 

ASPERSIONS UPON DRAPER 

If the collector is liable to forget the exact terms of deposit 
of the documents placed in his hands, the families of donors, 
shifting as they do with the generations, are quite certain to 
lose all definite information about the original transactions 
unless a written contemporary record of them has been pre- 
served. This fact opens the way for possible claims of any 
kind that cannot be specifically disproved by means of con- 
temporary evidence. Moreover, every historian and every 
lawyer knows that self-interest or desire in minds intent on a 
given objective colors recollections, or even substitutes one set 
of recollections for a forgotten set, and this without necessary 
implication of intentional dishonesty. 

It is therefore not strange that, at this date, so far removed 
from the era of Draper 's collecting activity — a period varying 
from eighty to sixty years ago — members of families from 
which papers were secured by Draper should occasionally 
protest on various grounds against the retention of such 
papers by this Society. The number of such protests prior 
to 1919 was negligible ; and, so far as I have been able to ascer- 
tain from our correspondence files, all of the earlier protes- 
tants, when the circumstances under which their family papers 
were acquired had been explained, expressed themselves as 
satisfied. Eecently, however, in one state, under the prompting 
and management of one man, a number of family representa- 
tives have filed statements, mostly attested by notaries, in 
which they profess to remember family traditions to the effect 
that Draper had secured their papers on the understanding 
that such papers were to be returned. In other cases the 
assertion is made, on traditional evidence, that Draper re- 
ceived the papers in order that he might be enabled to write 
the history of some member of the family, and since such his- 
tory was not written, in justice he ought to have returned 
them. Some of them bluntly demand the return of ' ' any and 

[6] 



THE DRAPER COLLECTION 

all papers" given to Draper by their ancestors or family rep- 
resentatives, which demand in no case discriminates between 
letters written to Draper and original documents contempo- 
raneous with the events or characters he was investigating. 
In at least one case a different argument appears. The writer 
avers that Draper received a parcel of papers to enable him 
to write his King's Mountain history, and after that had been 
done (the book was published in 1881) the papers were to have 
been returned. Thus, as is but natural, a pretext for the de- 
mand is found, if not in Draper's failure to publish, then in 
the fact of his having published. It requires no discussion to 
show that such professed recollections of what an ancestor 
said another ancestor told his informant, about an under- 
standing with Draper, does not constitute proof in any true 
sense. 

STATE PAPERS' 

To the charges that Draper kept some papers which had 
been lent (not given) to him by private families, and that 
many which seemingly had been donated were given with an 
understanding that he was to perform a certain act — namely, 
write some book in which the donor was interested — ^which 
act he neglected to perform, has been added the far more 
serious charge that he obtained possession in one way and 
another of state archives which remained in his hands, and 
also of some county archives from the same state. We have 
examined the volumes cited in proof of this charge, and find 
it to be without foundation, the mistake apparently having 
arisen from the fact that the person who made it was unfa- 
miliar with Draper's handwriting and mistook copies of 
documents for the originals. This leads me to repeat the re- 
mark that Draper's notes — transcripts of original documents, 
summaries, extracts, etc. — are often of far greater historical 
importance than the original papers which he salvaged from 
private garrets and escritoires. 

The charge against Draper of having in some way ab- 
stracted state papers from the archives of the state to which 
they belonged cannot well be overlooked by this Society. For, 

[7] 



WISCONSIN HISTORICAL SOCIETY 

however the harshness of such a statement may be mitigated 
by suggestions that the papers were doubtless lent to him by 
thoughtless or ignorant public custodians, their retention in 
itself would have been a violation of interstate comity which 
from our knowledge of Draper's character we are convinced 
he would not knowingly commit. The Society cannot but de- 
plore the fact that a public official of a sister state, on the 
basis of an unverified suspicion, has seen fit to publish among 
the people of his state this charge, thereby creating unde- 
served prejudice against this Society. As is well known, the 
Draper Collection under our management is open to examina- 
tion by any accredited investigator. When a question is raised 
about its contents, the collection itself is the final and only 
necessary exhibit. If any individual or any state is interested 
in proving that Draper assembled and retained material which 
ought not to be in the Draper Collection but ought to be some- 
where else (as, for example, in the state archives of Tennes- 
see), this Society will afford such persons every facility for 
making the investigations necessary to determine the point at 
issue. But it cannot regard with equanimity the publication 
of charges unsupported even by color of proof. 

THE DRAPER SERVICE 

Not only is the Draper Collection open to all investigators 
who visit our library, to whom are pointed out the indexes, 
calendars, and other equipment necessary to the most eco- 
nomical consultation of the hundreds of bound volumes of 
manuscripts; but this Society, ever since the collection came 
into its hands, has employed its own researchers to conduct 
without charge investigations to a reasonable extent for per- 
sons who are unable to visit the library. Also, the Society 
maintains a photostat service which enables it to furnish fac- 
similes of documents to all and sundry, the price charged being 
barely sufficient to pay the cost of the service, with no profit. 
Hundreds of requests for data from the Draper Collection — 
not merely the original sources, but also the memoirs and 
notes — are received and attended to every year, and photo- 

[8] 



THE DRAPER COLLECTION 

static reproductions of manuscripts are coming to be de- 
manded to an increasing extent. It cannot therefore be said 
that Dr. Draper or this Society sequestered papers given him 
by any individual. Moreover, since Draper's notes and let- 
ters constitute so large and so valuable a feature of the col- 
lection, it is clear that an inquirer can derive more help from 
the original documents which are here, supported and supple- 
mented as these are by the other sources, than he could derive 
from the original papers were they consulted in isolation or in 
relation to any other organized body of western material 
which now exists. As a matter of fact, contrary to current 
opinion, a large amount of such material does exist, but being 
in a dispersed condition scholars do not regard it as the 
equivalent for historical purposes of the Draper Collection, 
and much of it has been practically forgotten. For example, 
the state of Tennessee has all of the General James Robertson 
family papers, which were turned over by Dr. Felix Robert- 
son to the university in Nashville and were not given to 
Draper at all, though numerous affiants now assume they were. 
But Draper in 1844 studied that collection at Nashville and 
filled a notebook with extracts, summaries, and exact tran- 
scripts of those papers. When Tennessee's representative in 
1919 made application to the state legislature of Wisconsin to 
turn over by law to Tennessee a number of Draper's manu- 
script volumes which he had listed, this volume of Draper's 
notes of the Robertson papers Avas among them. Apparently 
that gentleman was then unaware that the original James 
Robertson papers were in Nashville, where they were con- 
sulted by Roosevelt (who had some difficulty in finding them) 
w^hen he wrote his Winning of the West. 

ATTITUDE OF SCHOLARS 

All historical scholars, without exception so far as I am 
aware, agree with the conclusions stated. They recognize in 
the Draper Collection a unity which, in the interest of scholar- 
ship, must be maintained at any reasonable cost. They are 
convinced that the Wisconsin society's legal title to the collec- 

[9] 



WISCONSIN HISTORICAL SOCIETY 

tion is unshakable; and while some might wish that certain 
of the documents were located in centers more accessible to 
themselves, and others, living in states from which Draper 
gleaned, may even believe some papers ought to have been 
returned to their states, I know of no historian who feels that 
in the interests either of scholarship or of morality should the 
Wisconsin collection be dispersed. 

ERRONEOUS CONCLUSIONS 

It is one thing, however, to stand on our legal rights, and 
quite another to satisfy the perfectly proper sentiments of 
families whose ancestral papers repose here, or the pressing 
needs of a growing body of research scholars interested in 
western history. The first can perhaps never be fully satis- 
fied, though everything that is still possible should be done to 
bring about that happy result. So much has been said and 
published about Draper's activity in collecting, that persons 
whose families once had papers and now lack them are quick 
to make the inference that such papers are in the Draper Col- 
lection. Of course, after so many years they are hopelessly 
confused about the character of such papers — whether they 
were original documents or mere letters of some ancestor com- 
municating information to Draper. Sometimes they infer 
from the fact that the Draper Collection has certain types of 
documents, that their ancestor must have given them to him, 
when in fact, as the records show, they came to him from 
other sources. We have already called attention to an error 
of this kind in connection with the General James Robertson 
papers. Such few James Robertson papers as Draper had, 
came to him not from Dr. Felix Robertson, as that worthy 
gentleman's descendants suppose, but from other families. 
The case of the Martin papers, bearing upon the career of 
Greneral Joseph Martin of Virginia, is more illuminating still. 
General Martin's eldest son, William by name, became a dis- 
tinguished and honored citizen of Tennessee. He had resided 
for nearly half a century at his country seat near Dixon's 
Spring, Smith County, when in 1842 Draper, a young man of 

[10] 



THE DRAPER COLLECTION 

twenty-seven years, made liis acquaintance. A warm friend- 
ship developed between Draper and Colonel Martin, who gave 
the historian most generous assistance in the form of memoirs 
which he wrote at various times almost up to the date of his 
death, in November, 1846. Colonel Martin wrote Draper that 
he had no papers bearing on his father's career, but he in- 
quired of his brother, Colonel Joseph Martin (a man twenty 
years younger, son of a different mother), who lived in Vir- 
ginia, if their father's papers were preserved there.^ He was 
rejoiced to learn these facts : Joseph Martin had purchased, 
at the sale of his mother's effects, the old ^'secretary," which 
had in it some papers. Examining it now for the first time, 
under the impulse of Draper's and William Martin's inquiries, 
he found a number of documents, some of them bearing pre- 
Revolutionary dates, which he sent direct to Draper at Buffalo, 
New York.2 These Martin papers have recently been claimed 
as properly belonging to Tennessee, the claimant giving as 
authority a descendant in the third remove from Colonel Wil- 
liam Martin — it being assumed that the papers had been the 

•In the copy of his long letter to Draper dated Dixon's Spring, July 7, 1842, 
Colonel William Martin says : "I forgot to say, in the proper place, that I know 
of BO documents, left by my father, which might be of use to you. I have a 
file of his letters only on business. Indeed, he seldom wrote on any other occa- 
sion; and I think he was rather loose and careless about papers. ... If 
there are any such documents extant, they are, I presume, in possession of my 
brother. Col. Joseph Martin, who had charge of the estate; and who would take 
pleasure in furnishing them on application." [He wrote to his brother about 
the matter.] 

* September 6, 1842, Colonel William Martin wrote Draper again, saying : "I 
told you I had written to my Br Col. Joseph Martin, Henry County, Va. respect- 
ing documents &c. To that letter I have just rec"* his reply; from which I will 
here give some extracts. 

" 'Since the receipt of yr last letter, I have been engaged some part of almost 
every day, in examination of our Father's old documents. ... At the sale 
of my mother 's estate, I purchased the old desk and Bookcase, containing our 
Father's papers; intending at some convenient time to examine them carefully; 
but after storing away carefully the old family furniture, the contemplated ex- 
amination never commenced, until you called my attention to the subject.' " 
[The extract gives some account of the contents of the collection, which appears 
to have included a considerable number of documents that were reserved when, a 
little later, a packet of papers was made up by Colonel Joseph Martin and sent 
to Draper. It would be interesting to know the fate of these reserved papers — 
letters of Jefferson, Madison, Monroe, and others.] Colonel William Martin, after 
qnoting what his brother said, continues : "I wish very much you had those 
papers. Were they here I would send them to you forthwith. ... I will 
write to my Br. to try to give them a passage. He ought not to hesitate 
about it, he is very rich, & ought to employ someone to take them directly to 
yon. . . . My Br is . . . just twenty years younger than I am — half- 
brother. ' ' 

[11 ] 



WISCONSIN HISTORICAL SOCIETY 

property of that good friend of Dr. Draper, and there being, 
as was supposed, a clear and trustworthy tradition that he 
lent them to Draper on the understanding that they were to be 
returned. We have not the slightest doubt that the represen- 
tative of theWilliam Martin family who signed the affidavit 
claiming the papers did so in absolute good faith. Being an 
honored and trusted citizen of Tennessee, who has filled an 
important place in her public life, his honor and probity are of 
course beyond question.^ Yet the information upon which he 
relies is altogether at variance with the facts as these stand 
disclosed in the documents on file here. The Martin papers 
never were in Tennessee at all ; they never belonged to Colonel 
William Martin, who in the course of his long and active life 
never had thought to inquire about them and did not know 
of their existence till Draper suggested the question; and it 
appears they had not been given by General Joseph Martin 
to any member of his family, which indicates that he placed no 
store by them. They were merely left in his accustomed desk, 
which happened to go to a member of the family instead of to 
a stranger, and from which, fortunately, they were rescued 
in consequence of Draper's inquisitive interest. 

Colonel Joseph Martin, the donor, did not correspond fre- 
quently with Draper. His last letter is dated ''Greenwood, 
Henry County, Virgina, 2d Dec 1856." This was fourteen 
years after he had given Draper the papers. He had won- 

" The affidavit is signed by the son of the only daujjhter and only child of 
Wilson y. Martin, who was the son of Colonel William Martin, referred to above. 
The affiant has this to say of Colonel William Martin: "Accurate and method- 
ical in his habits, he had, and preserved, many records and memoranda pertain- 
ing to that history making period during which he passed his life. As the eldest 
son of hia father [General Joseph Martin], at the latter 's death in 1808, Col. 
Martin came into possession of his father 's large accumulation of records, 
memoranda and documents of like import, which, likewise, he preserved. 

' ' Not long before Col. Martin 's death, Dr. Lyman C. Draper of New York State 
came to Middle Tennessee with the purpose of securing data for a projected work 
dealing with the history of the 'West,' its pioneers and early settlements. He 
visited Col. Martin more than once at Belleview and spent at least several weeks in 
his home. In addition to oral information supplied during his stay, Col. Martin 
permitted him to take from his collection a number of papers containing valuable 
data, with the understanding and promise of Dr. Draper that they should be 
returned after he had availed himself of their contents. Dr. Draper later removed 
to Wisconsin, and for some unaccountable reason deposited these Martin papers 
in the Library or Historical Society of that State, where, as I am advised, they 
yet remain. ' ' 

[12] 



THE DRAPER COLLECTION 

dered if Draper were still "in the land of the living," and had 
only just heard of his removal to the ''far west" [Wisconsin]. 
"I am very anxious," he says, ''to know whether you are 
still engaged in completing your book of the lives of the dis- 
tinguished pioneers of the S. W. of whom my father, Gen^ 
Joseph Martin, was one. I think the last letter I received 
from you, the history of Gen^ G. R. Clark was to be the first 
published, and then the others in regular succession." Not 
a word about the papers given Draper or the terms of that 
gift. 

And now as to the manuscript furnished Draper by Colonel 
William Martin in the form of memoirs: That ma/nuscript 
was prepared in duplicate. The original draft was retained 
by Colonel Martin, and a fair copy, a large portion of which 
was written in the beautiful hand of Wilson Y. Martin, was 
sent on.* After Colonel William Martin's death this original 
manuscript remained in the hands of Wilson Y. Martin at least 
fifteen years.^ At the end of that period William L. Martin 
wrote to Draper: "My brother and myself have been con- 
sulting whether it would not be proper to present our father 's 
manuscript to the historical society at Nashville, inasmuch as 
it contains facts which may be important in writing the future 
history of the state; this, however, we are not willing to do 
without your consent."® 

We do not know whether this plan was carried out, but 
probably it was."^ If it was not, then the manuscript doubtless 

* Colonel Martin writes, June 4, 1842 : "I expect it will be some two or three 
weeks before I can forwnrrl my manuserirt as after I have scribbled it off it will 
have to be copied into a fair hand "o that you [can] read it." Tt was sent July 7, 
1842 — twenty closely written foolscap pages, all in the hand of Wilson Y. Mar- 
tin save a small portion of sheet 20. Most of the supplementary matter, also, 
was copied bv tlie same hand. 

'Letter of William L. Martin. November 20, 1857, proves this. It is therein 
referred to, and a point of Tennessee histoi-y was settled by its means. But 
already in 1870 the:e was a tradition in the Wilson Martin family that the 
memoir had been taken, at Colonel William Martin's death, by his eldest son, 
Joseph. See letter of J. H. Young to Draper, August 31, 1870. 

^Ibid. 

'At all events, when in 1870 the Colonel William Martin parsers were examined 
at Draper's request by J. H. Youn-, son-ii> law of Wilson Y. Martin, this manu- 
scriiit was m-'ss^^or from the file. See letter of J. H. Youn:; to Draper, Aup^st 31, 
1870. The Marun family at that time su'M-osed it had been taken at Colonel 
Martin's death in 1846 by his eldest son, .Toseph Martin. This the William L. 
Martin letter above cited proves to have been an error. 

[13] 



WISCONSIN HISTORICAL SOCIETY 

remained in the home of Wilson Y. Martin and its fate ought 
to be within the knowledge of his family, of which the affiant 
referred to is the present head. If, as seems probable, it was 
carried out, if the manuscript was sent to Nashville and there 
lost, the situation becomes still more interesting. For we 
would then have before us the peculiar case of a great com- 
monwealth claiming, as of right, a coyy of a manuscript nar- 
rative of its early history which has been preserved and made 
known, to take the place of the original narrative which its 
own officers have lost or forgotten. 

In making claims for the return, or transfer to another in- 
stitution, of such documents the persons making them surely 
overlook the equities which belong to this Society. They for- 
get that Draper acquired these papers in perfect good faith, 
frequently from persons who had no inkling of their historical 
value and no knowledge of how such old papers must be 
treated in order to defy the forces of disintegration. If they 
could visit this library and actually see what it was necessary 
to do in order to preserve their now so precious mementos, a 
different attitude would result. Many of these papers when 
Draper got them were falling into the condition of the "won- 
defful one-hoss shay" that fated morning when the deacon 
risked his last ride in her ; and many more were in that condi- 
tion, victims of the decay incident to age, at the time they came 
into the Society's hands. Had not such manuscripts been 
mounted between strips of transparent silk — a very delicate 
and expensive process paid for by the Society — they would 
today be practically non-existent. Had not the Society pub- 
lished descriptive accounts of the Draper Collection — calen- 
dars, etc. — and freely administered it for the benefit of the 
public, doubtless many descendants of donors would be quite 
unaware that their families ever possessed such papers or 
that they had been preserved. 

SUGGESTIONS 

Just where is the line separating title by accidental inherit- 
ance and title by discovery, preservation, conservation, and 

[M] 



THE DRAPER COLLECTION 

use may be difficult to say; yet it would seem that fifty, sixty, 
or eighty years of quiet possession, with constant expendi- 
ture toward preserving and making them useful for every- 
body, ought to give Dr. Draper and this Society a good title 
to everything in the collection, unless in specific instances 
there should be found positive proof to the contrary. Never- 
theless, we feel that the Society, in the spirit of Dr. Draper, 
must do what it can to merit the good will of those who repre- 
sent the donors of these papers. Knowing now that the docu- 
ments are here, such persons have a natural and praiseworthy 
desire to learn more about them. They should be furnished 
gratuitously any available descriptive material the Society 
has published; and their specific inquiries, in the future as in 
the past, should be answered with fullness, courtesy, and 
candor, despite the fact that such inquiries are becoming ever 
more numerous and that they cost the Society more and more 
in research time. Some will wish to see specimens of an an- 
cestor's handwriting or his autograph. For such, photostatic 
copies will be made of characteristic documents. These fam- 
ilies were Draper's friends, and it cannot be considered a mis- 
construction of the spirit of our trusteeship when we hold 
that the Society is under obligation to deserve their friend- 
ship, whether or not it can secure and hold it. 

For the benefit of researchers several things might be added 
to what the Society has already done to make the collection 
more fully serviceable. The first of these is to publish addi- 
tional calendars. Money for that purpose has hitherto not 
been available, and is not now available. But in view of the 
need, of the conditions on which this Society was entrusted 
with the Draper manuscripts, in view also of the natural de- 
sire of our people to respond to the reasonable demands of 
the people of other states, it will not be inappropriate for this 
Society to ask the legislature for funds to prepare and pub- 
lish as rapidly as possible descriptive lists of all uncalendared 
Draper papers. 

We have in hand one completed calendar, in manuscript, 
prepared at the Society's expense by Mabel C. Weaks, with the 

[15] 



WISCONSIN HISTORICAL SOCIETY 

assistance of other staff members. It describes the manu- 
scripts which relate chiefly to the area now occupied by the 
state of Kentucky. This calendar ought to be printed without 
loss of time, and we believe its prospective users would be glad 
to pay for printed copies at a rate which would reimburse the 
Society in large part for publication costs. Inasmuch as the 
Society paid the salaries of the persons who prepared the 
calendar — an aggregate of perhaps not less than $3,000 — and 
since such publications are not primarily for our own members 
(who receive no free copies) but for the research public, we 
believe it ought to be the policy to sell copies at a price which 
will nearly cover printing costs. 

A good beginning was made, some years ago, on a calendar 
of the George Rogers Clark papers, one of the largest and 
most valuable groups in the Draper Collection. Assistance 
toward paying for that work was contributed by one of the 
Kentucky societies, which increases the obligation upon us 
to have the work completed and published. If the state will 
expand our budget sufficiently to enable the Society to employ 
a trained and experienced person for that work exclusively, 
it ought to be practicable, with what is now ready, to bring out 
a volume each year for several years, and in no long period to 
complete the undertaking. 

Aside from calendars, the most important thing that 
could be done for the advantage of researchers would be to 
place a complete set of photostatic reproductions of Draper 
manuscripts where it would be central for the states of the 
Southwest. This Society could hardly be expected to tax 
itself, or to ask the state of Wisconsin to tax itself, for such 
an object. But if public institutions in the states concerned 
were to move in harmony, decide on a location for the collec- 
tion, and secure each a small appropriation, there is no reason 
why the plan could not be executed to the very great conven- 
ience of a large number of investigators. And if a coopera- 
tive project should prove cumbersome, a single state ought not 
to find it too great a burden. This Society paid in many cases 
$50 per volume for mounting original Draper papers. Some 

116] 



THE DRAPER COLLECTION 

of those volumes could be reproduced at no greater expense, 
many at much less expense. The notes and memoirs could 
be typed. This would cost less than photostating and would 
make the material more legible. For much less money than 
this Society has invested in the care and preservation of the 
original Draper papers, the entire collection could be repro- 
duced in handsome, permanent form. 

We have heard from one quarter a suggestion that photo- 
static facsimiles of papers bearing on the history of a given 
state should be placed in the archives of that state. There is 
no obstacle in the way of doing that, though the wisdom of the 
plan seems doubtful. The materials in the collection were 
assembled regionally, not statewise. They are so interrelated 
that it becomes practically impossible to separate them off 
sharply into state compartments. Besides, such a partial col- 
lection would possess, for historical purposes, far less than a 
proportionate value. The Draper Collection, as is clear from 
the method of its assembling, is a great organic unity which 
cannot be made fully useful in transcripts unless that unity 
is preserved. 

While we would not be understood as offering advice, we are 
convinced that if the state of Tennessee were to signalize its 
recently developed interest in the Draper Collection by placing 
at Nashville a transcript of the entire collection — not merely 
original documents, but also Draper's notes and his accu- 
mulated memoirs — that capital would instantly spring into im- 
portance as a center for the study of western history. 

CONCLUSION 

In conclusion, we hope to make it clear to the families of 
Draper's many friends in Tennessee, that if they shall experi- 
ence feelings of discomfiture from the publication of the above 
facts, we regret deeply the necessity of publishing. By with- 
holding names we have sought to make this exposure of the 
hollowness of Tennessee's claim, worked up during the past 
four years, as little painful to the feelings of any individual 
as possible. We are well convinced that practically all of the 

[17] 



WISCONSIN HISTORICAL SOCIETY 

afiddavits which are on file testifying against Draper and this 
Society were solicited, and not given spontaneously; that the 
ideas contained in them were, in some cases at least, the result 
of suggestion rather than recollection; and that the testimony 
was given under the powerful pressure of what was supposed 
to be a patriotic motive. We must remind them that patriot- 
ism is not served by aspersing the character of the patient 
scholar who in his lifetime did more for Tennessee history in 
its permanent aspects than any other man living or dead ; the 
man whose wizardry transmuted the unformulated experiences 
of the Appalachian pioneers into the gold of historical mem- 
oirs; who rescued from destruction documentary relics of 
the earliest pioneering age, and preserved all of these stores 
of material as the sure means of doing justice to the char- 
acters of the pioneers themselves. 

We will hardly need to remind them that this great collec- 
tion of manuscripts is also the means of doing justice to the 
memory of Dr. Draper. No person living knows all of its 
secrets, because no one has read more than a small proportion 
of the papers contained in it. But some of us have read 
enough to convince us that Draper's character will emerge 
unscathed from any examination, by friendly or hostile eye. 
This Society has spent many thousands of dollars in conserv- 
ing the Draper Collection and in making it available for 
others. We cannot afford similar sums that would be required 
if we were to employ experts to go through the collection for 
the purpose of studying the history of every separate group 
of papers as we have studied the history of the Robertson and 
Martin papers. It is only in cases where individuals have the 
temerity to set up and publish naked ''recollections" against 
the witness of their own ancestors recorded in the Draper 
papers, that this Society as trustee for Dr. Draper feels con- 
strained to give the collection its chance to speak. 



[18] 



THE DRAPER COLLECTION 
THE CORRESPONDENCE OF GENERAL JAMES ROBERTSON 

The American Historical Magazine, published by the his- 
tory department of Peabody Normal College, Nashville, Ten- 
nessee, in volume 1 (1896), No. 1, p. 72-73, presents an account 
of this correspondence : 

Fragments of the correspondence of this remarkable man, consisting of 
copies of letters written by himself, and preserved among his papers, the 
original letters written to him by correspondents, and copies of important 
contemporaneous documents, have been preserved. They are bound in 
manuscript in two large volumes, and are among the treasures of the library 
of the "University of Nashville and Peabody Normal College." Most of 
the copies of his own letters and of contemporaneous documents are in 
General Robertson's own handwi'iting. A few of the letters were injured be- 
fore being bound in book form, and are worn in the folds, so as to be, in some 
places, nearly illegible. In many of the letters, the ink has faded so much that 
some words are indistinct. An examination of the correspondence shows that 
the Spaniards used better ink than the Cumberland settlers. In editing this 
correspondence, no liberty is taken with the originals, except in a few in- 
stances, to make them conform to the rules of modern punctuation and spell- 
ing, and to supply from the context a few words which are illegible. 

These letters have been invaluable to the historians of Tennessee. They 
supply pictures of social, political and military life, drawn by the leading 
actors in the events to which they relate. Yet only two or three of them 
have ever been published. They will be given successively in the issues of this 
magazine. 

The first selection given below includes the correspondence from 1784 to 
1790, at which latter date Tennessee became the Southwest Territory. 

Beginning with Vol. I, the manuscript title-page reads as follows: 

"Correspondence of Gen'l. James Robertson. 

Extending from November 4, 1784 to July 30, 1814. 

Bound in Two Volumes. 

Presented to the Library of The University of Nashville 

by Dr. Felix Robertson, and bound and deposited 

by Nathaniel Cross, 1840." 

[Then comes the following certificate:] 

"The Correspondence etc., of Gen. James Robertson, who has been styled 
the 'Father of Tennessee,' was obtained from his son, Dr. Felix Robertson of 
Nashville, with permission to select from it such papers as might be considered 
worth preserving; inasmuch however as many of those, that were of a private 
nature, contained the allusions to political occurrences and Indian border 
troubles of the day, it was deemed best to preserve the correspondence entire 
[Editor's italics]. I accordingly arranged them in chronological order and 
had them bound in these two volumes. 

Nathl. Cross." 

Nashville University Library. 
1840 

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